


It Can't Be Me Only

by VSSAKJ



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Sequence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28810590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VSSAKJ/pseuds/VSSAKJ
Summary: It's Tommy, not Jesse, who dies during the confrontation between Abby and Ellie in the theatre.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie/Jesse (The Last of Us)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maharetr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box! I loved your enthusiam and prompts, and hope you enjoy this sequence of drabbles.

“Tommy didn’t make it back.”

She’s been practicing how to say them all the way back from Seattle, but Ellie’s not sure the words were ever gonna come out right. She watches Maria flinch as they reach her, watches Maria turn her back and raise a fist to cover her mouth. Watches the silence radiate into Maria’s sunny kitchen.

She wonders if it feels as bad as losing Joel did. She doesn’t ask.

She watches Maria’s shoulders square as Maria turns back around. Her expression is complex, but her words are simple and resigned:

“It’s been a long time coming.”


	2. Chapter 2

On the trip back from Seattle, they should have talked more than they did. Jesse’s wounds pained him and he seized up when he slept; Dina’s morning sickness meant she dozed most of the drive, and Ellie—Ellie kept her eyes on the roads. It would have been easier if they’d had horses, but it would have been harder, too.

The one conversation they do have is important.

“What are you going to do with the baby?” Jesse asks, his eyes half lidded as he lays in the back seat of the truck.

There hadn’t been time to ask before.


	3. Chapter 3

Dina considers the question with a hum and a smile. She’s quiet for long enough that Jesse groans his way into sitting up, and Ellie glances between them with her tongue knotted behind her teeth. Does she get to be a part of the answer? Is she even a part of the question?

“I’m gonna keep him.” Dina affirms at last, and when she turns, it’s to look at both of them fire in her gaze. “We’re all going to be parents together.”

When Ellie meets Jesse’s eyes, they both grin. No point in arguing with Dina when she’s decided.


	4. Chapter 4

To Ellie, Jackson doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Half of the hardest part is walking past Joel’s house and knowing he’s not inside it. She sees him standing on his porch, trying to make things right with her. She sees herself not being able to forgive him, little knowing she’ll never get the chance to do it. She sees herself leaving to try and settle the emotions inside her. She sees herself leaving Abby alive. She hates it, every time.

The other half of the hardest part is how much everyone around Dina wants just Jesse to be with her.


	5. Chapter 5

They move to the farm a month or two before the baby’s due.

The fences are up, the walls are repaired, and between them, Ellie and Jesse handle most of the heavy lifting, but Dina still gets away with doing more than she should. Her belly is firm and round, and they spend that evening sitting on the floor together, celebrating their hard day’s work.

“I’m ready for this.” Dina says, kissing first Ellie, and then Jesse. The glow of lamplight reflects in her eyes. “Are you?”

Ellie murmurs “Yeah.” at the same time as Jesse nods, “More than ready.”


	6. Chapter 6

Their baby’s a little boy.

Exhausted, Dina holds his tiny body up to her face and gets her tears on him, whispering, “I’m going to take such good care of you.”

“He’ll be a survivor.” Jesse agrees, and Ellie can only hope so. Otherwise, what was the point in getting this far?

“What should we call him?” Ellie strokes the hair on his forehead, fine and black as Dina’s.

“I’ve been thinking about this.” Dina admits. The flush in her cheek is so pretty Ellie almost doesn’t hear Jesse speak next.

“Let me guess: TJ.”

Dina laughs. “You got it.”


	7. Chapter 7

TJ.

J for Joel, the grandpa he’ll never meet. That one, Ellie figures out right away. If it wasn’t Jesse and Dina, she knows some people would think it’s J for Jesse, for some kind of legacy, but Jesse’s not like that. It’s one of the reasons she’s always liked him.

She thinks at first that T must be for Tommy, who died trying to help them avenge Joel. But as she lies awake at night, surrounded by the quiet breathing of her partners, she realises that it’s for Dina’s sister, Talia. The aunt he’ll never get to know, either.


	8. Chapter 8

Ellie remembers that she’s fucking tired.

TJ is amazing. Sharing him between the three of them makes his schedule of two hours awake, two hours asleep a little more bearable. Soon, he’s holding up his own head, then he’s rolling, then he’s sitting up. He has so much energy and his laugh sounds like joy she can’t remember how to feel.

At night, when they all settle down for bed, she plays guitar and sings them the songs Joel taught her how to play. When she’s done, they’re asleep, and she goes downstairs to stare across the field and remember.


	9. Chapter 9

“Unpack that bag.” Dina is shaking with fury in the dim light of dawn, barring Ellie’s way with her body. She’s shorter than Ellie, just by a little, and wearing pyjamas which are far from intimidating.

Ellie’s hand is frozen on the strap of the bag on her shoulder, just like the idea of crying is frozen inside her, just like her appetite is frozen, just like time is frozen on the farm except for how TJ keeps growing. TJ. Just by being there, every day TJ reminds her that she’s let Joel down.

It isn’t his fault. It’s hers.


	10. Chapter 10

Ellie is trapped, undecided, lost. Sometimes, she laughs. She kisses Dina and she kisses Jesse and she kisses TJ, and she thinks about what the future holds for them.

Sometimes, she screams, scaring the baby and bringing Dina and Jesse running. Her hands shake and she’s covered in sweat and she can’t breathe, because her eyes are full of Joel’s face getting beaten in and her ears are full of his pained groans and her hands are full of the need to make Abby sorry for what she did to him.

Like if Abby apologises, maybe Joel could forgive her.


	11. Chapter 11

“Wanna talk?” Jesse asks, settling down next to the tractor tyre. He’s the peacekeeper between the three of them, the easygoing one who knows when to back off and when to push. And he never makes anything about taking sides.

“I can’t sleep.” Ellie grits out between her teeth. “I keep thinking about Joel.” It’s only part of an explanation. She’s not sure she can say any more than that.

She doesn’t think he’ll understand if she says ‘I keep thinking about Abby’, even though that’s the real problem.

What he says next surprises her. “I think about him too.”


	12. Chapter 12

“I think a lot about the people we’ve lost, what they’re missing out on now. I imagine the things they probably regret, and I try to do what they would’ve done instead. Someone regrets investigating that noise alone and getting bit, so I always take a buddy. Someone wanted to watch their sister grow up and couldn’t, so I’m taking in every minute with TJ. I think Joel wanted to protect you, wanted you to be happy. I want that too.”

Jesse looks her square in the eye, and Ellie holds her breath. “What would he have done any different?”


	13. Chapter 13

Jesse says it like it isn’t some choking, rotted hand squeezing his heart so tight it feels like it’s going to burst, so maybe it doesn’t feel that way for him.

Jesse says it like it isn’t a long blonde braid splashing blood across her face every time it hits her, so maybe he doesn’t see it that way.

Jesse says it like she belongs here, and that’s something Ellie wants more than anything in the world. More than anything, she wants to _be_ here, now. She wants to be part of TJ growing up, in his weird little family.


	14. Chapter 14

Joel wouldn’t have done any different. It was one of the last things he said to her. Joel would have picked her all over again.

Does she choose Abby’s ghost over the baby boy sleeping beside her? Does she choose Joel’s memory over the dozing woman she loves, or the steadfast man resting back-to-back on her other side?

Or does she choose what Joel wanted for her?

When Ellie has good dreams, she curls closer to Dina and smiles against her skin. When Ellie has bad dreams, she twines her fingers between Jesse’s and exhales softly until he squeezes back.


End file.
